There is an old expression that has nothing to do with woodworking, but it has turned out to be one of the guiding principles in my work.
The expression goes something like this: If you have to ask the question, then you already know the answer.
It sounds ridiculous, I’m sorry. But let me give you an example of how it works in the shop.
As I was building the workbench shown on the cover of this issue it came time to attach the massive 104 kg top to the 45 kg base, and I was facing the task of drawboring the four massive joints.
This extra step was going to require a couple hours of work and serious heavy lifting. I was going to have to fit the base into the top, remove the base to bore the holes for the pegs and then fit it again and remove it again to mark and bore the offset holes in the tenons.
It was 5 p.m. and it would have been so much simpler to just place the top on the base and let gravity hold it together. The question then flashed in my head: Do I really need to drawbore the top?
These questions of expediency remind me of old cartoons, where the character gets competing advice from both an angel and a devil. These questions always come from the devil (or woodworker) on the right side of the cartoon cat.
These were questions I spent years debating and agonizing over. I tried to understand both sides of the argument and debated them. I eventually realized that these questions were all just one question: Will you take a seemingly sensible shortcut that will save time but leave you with regret later?
Question: Should I strip the finish off my Morris chair project after the staining highlighted a couple small but disappointing toolmarks near the through-tenons?
Question: Should I dovetail my rear joints in these drawers to make a toolbox? No one will ever see them, and a lock-rabbet will be faster.
Question: Do I really need to test this familiar joint before I glue it up?
Question: Do I really need to check the jointers fence to make sure its still 90? to the bed?
In the case of the workbench, I actually asked the question out loud, and all of my fellow editors heard me and chimed in with advice. One editor said that gravity was more than enough to hold everything in place and that drawboring the top was likely an act of ridiculous excess.
We assembled the bench and placed it on the feet of the other editors. It looked great assembled. It seemed rock solid, like I could park my old VW on it. I was ready to go home and have a beer.
Then one of the editors went up to the end of the bench and gave it several king-size hip checks. I noticed something. As the editor did a few hip checks, I was more interested in the point where the leg meets the top.
Although it was small, the bench’s base was extremely difficult to move. After years of planing on this bench, this wracking would become a problem. So I fetched my drawbore pins from my tool chest and got ready for a long evening. I was already exhausted from testing out a question I knew the answer to.
Later that evening, I was ready for two beers and drove home. I began to wonder if this philosophy could become imprisoning for others. That is, every question could lead to a fussy downward spiral of extra work that resulted in nothing ever getting done. But I dont think so. Each project is a series operations. Many of these operations are well-known and don’t generate these questions. But when we stumble into new territory, these questions are the angel on our left shoulder telling us to first slow down and figure things out.
If we listen, the next time we face the same problem, there won’t be any more questions, only action.
